A Bend in the River

A Bend in the River
1st edition
Author(s)	V. S. Naipaul
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Alfred A Knopf
Publication date	May 1979[1]
Media type	Print
Pages	278 pages
ISBN	0-394-50573-5
OCLC Number	4494403
Dewey Decimal	823/.9/14
LC Classification	PZ4.N155 Be 1979 PR9272.9.N32

A Bend in the River is a 1979 novel by Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked A Bend in the River #83 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1979.^[2]

Plot

Set in an unnamed African country after independence, the book is narrated by Salim, an ethnically Indian Muslim and a shopkeeper in a small, growing city in the country's remote interior. Though born and raised in another country in a more cosmopolitan city on the coast during the colonial period, as neither European nor fully African, Salim observes the rapid changes in his homeland with an outsider's distance.

Analysis

One critic thinks it represents "the gradual darkening of African society as it returns to its age-old condition of bush and blood" ^[3] and thinks this pessimistic response shows Naipaul's "inability to examine postcolonial societies in any depth"^[4]

Naipaul credits an extramarital affair for giving A Bend in the River and his later books greater fluidity, saying these "in a way to some extent depend on her (i.e., his mistress). They stopped being dry.”^[5]

References

External links

• Literary Encyclopedia entry